


Limits

by fallencrest



Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-24 07:38:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8363476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallencrest/pseuds/fallencrest
Summary: Bruce has raised Clark ever since they found him in Kansas and he has spent years helping Clark to find his limits and control them. At seventeen, Clark has finally found a limit he's scared to push and one he can't ask Bruce to help him with. Bruce helps him anyway.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [linndechir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/gifts).



Clark runs. Clark runs because that's what he does when he's scared or uncertain. It's what he's always done. Bruce knows that by now.

Clark runs but he doesn't run far because, after all, when you can span the globe in an instant, the distance travelled doesn't make much difference. 

He likes the view from the hills at the far side of the lake opposite the lakehouse. He likes that he can see where Bruce is without seeing him. He likes knowing that Bruce can follow him but that it will take him long enough to walk the distance that Clark has time to prepare himself. He can settle back inside himself and simply be himself: no thought of what other people want from him, no consciousness that he isn't human no matter how used to behaving like one he might be by now.

He's seventeen and there's an itch under his skin that he never felt when he was younger. It's been building for a long time but it feels now like it wants to push all the way out of him and turn him into something he doesn't want to be. 

Bruce has been good to him, good at testing limits and setting boundaries, good at giving him what he needs; but there are things Clark needs that he knows he can't have and that's what's led him here tonight. 

The lakehouse lights are mostly off, though the light from the kitchen betrays the fact that Alfred has waited up for them. Alfred has a really bad habit of waiting up for them.

It had been a good night until it wasn't. 

It was one of those nights when Bruce let Clark watch his back. Only Clark had watched too much and, under the hot spray of the shower in the Batcave, he'd let himself think. He wasn't supposed to let himself think like that. Not about anyone really but Bruce especially. It was too easy to find himself thinking about Bruce, about the size of him, about how the water found its way in rivulets over his shoulders, his back. He can let himself think about Bruce sometimes. He tells himself that Bruce at least might understand because Bruce knows things about Clark that no-one else knows: how he isn't just a normal teenager, how there are reasons he doesn't always act like one.

Bruce had taken him into his home a long time ago, knowing what he was. Bruce knows, as no-one else does, the things that Clark could do if he let himself. Bruce has even made sure they've talked about it, made sure Clark knows that he'd stop him if he had to, no matter the consequences. 

(“I don't want to use it,” Bruce had said, closing the seal on a lead-lined box, “but I will if I have to.” 

They'd tested it together, the kryptonite, and Clark remembers the sense of relief he'd felt when it worked. 

It had scared him as a child, the fear that he might be all-powerful. There are vestiges of that fear in what scares him now.)

 

Clark hears Bruce coming a long way off. He feels sometimes as though he's attuned to Bruce's movements in a way he isn't to other people's. He doesn't have to listen to hear his footsteps, his heartbeat, and sometimes it's hard to stop listening when he shouldn't. Maybe that's another part of his problem at this stage.

Clark spends the last minute or so of Bruce's assent just listening to him, sensing him, forcing himself not to turn around until Bruce says, “Clark, you know we have to talk about this.” 

Clark looks up over his shoulder at Bruce. “I don't want to talk about it.”

“I'm not giving you a choice,” Bruce says. He sits down on the ground next to Clark, hesitates before he puts a hand on Clark's shoulder. “If this is going to be a problem, we have to talk about it.”

“It's not a problem.” Clark says but he knows that Bruce can't have failed to notice the tension in his shoulders, muscles tight under his hand. He just doesn't want to back down. He has weaknesses he doesn't want to admit and there are things he doesn't want to have to talk about. When you live with the world's greatest detective, sometimes you hope that means he won't make you admit the things he already knows.

Bruce sighs out a breath, as though he doesn't want to talk about it either. “You running like this is what makes it a problem.” 

“OK.” Clark says, trying to maintain his equilibrium, telling himself that Bruce knows so it doesn't matter what he says, “So what do you want me to say? You want me to say that I want you – that I can't stop wanting and I can't do anything other than want you when I see you sometimes. And I know it's wrong and I shouldn't but I can't stop. I— I can't, OK?” He looks down at the ground on those last few words, defeated. 

There's no hesitation when Bruce responds, no clear reaction in his face either. “You don't have to stop,” Bruce says. “You just have to find a way to deal with it.”

“And what do you suggest that is?”

“Whatever works.”

“I can't just beat up criminals to deal with my problems like you do, Bruce. I don't have a way to fix myself and I can't make myself not want—” he pauses, falters, wants to really run this time, far enough and fast enough that Bruce wouldn't be able to catch him, “if it weren't you, it would be someone else and I can't. I can't let myself hurt someone. Because what happens if I lose control— You think you know what I am and what I'm capable of but you don't know, _we_ don't know—”

“I know,” Bruce says, “But we can do what we've done every other time we've needed to test your limits. We can test it.” He's completely calm, stoic as he meets Clark's eye.

“Bruce, I can't. How can you test this? It's not—”

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes. Always. But I can't use you as a test subject, a science experiment, not for this.”

“Then don't look at it that way. If you need this, I'll help you. And I think you need it.”

“No,” Clark says, “I'll deal with it. I'll find another way.”

 

He doesn't find another way. 

He finds himself strung out and tired and distracted. The itch under his skin feels like it's tearing its way out. He can't sleep because he dreams that he's tearing people apart, because he dreams that Bruce kisses him and he snaps Bruce's neck. Talking about it has made it worse, made manifest the worst possibilities. He's scared of himself and what he wants and he can't concentrate on anything.

The bus crash is the thing that breaks him. People actually get hurt. And it's not because he did anything but because he didn't do the things he was supposed to do fast enough. Because he was tired and couldn't think.

When he sees Bruce afterwards, Bruce sits him down and tells him they're going to have to do something about it. There isn't an option for letting Clark self-destruct. 

“You may do more harm like this than you could ever do to me.”

Clark admits it. He nods. He doesn't say anything. 

“First, you have to sleep,” Bruce says. And it's true, god, it's true. Clark feels distant from himself, like he is somewhere farther back inside his skull, not quite attached to the world. He doesn't even balk when Bruce takes him upstairs, brings Clark to his bed and lies down with him in it. 

Clark wants to say something, opens his mouth to speak when Bruce says, “Sleep.”

And, somehow, he does. 

He spends a few brief moments wondering how he will sleep like this, with Bruce beside him, the scent of him in the pillow, the sheets, but he closes his eyes and doesn't open them again. He even sleeps longer than he's used to.

 

Bruce is gone but he's left a note. It says “Wait here. Think about what you want.” 

Clark wonders what Bruce wants him to do if today is the day the world ends, if there's a tidal wave or just someone out there who needs him but he also knows Bruce well enough to know that he's told the other members of the Justice League to cover for him; and he knows that if it were truly that bad, Bruce would understand if he went, even strung out and distracted as he is. 

He doesn't stay in bed all day but it's tempting. He can't push away the memories of hearing Bruce getting himself off at night, imagining Bruce where he is now, in this bed, with his hand on his dick; and maybe it would be enough for Clark to just watch. That would be safe at least but Clark knows he couldn't settle for that once he'd seen it, knows how hard it would be to not touch. 

He spends some time swinging at a punching bag in the Batcave. It's more an exercise in control than anything. Normally, it's easy for him to mirror Bruce, match the strength of his blows, but right now he can't quite escape the fear that he isn't in control enough anymore. He throws one or two blows too hard, can tell what he's done from the noise the chain makes as it warps and how it doesn't swing right afterwards. 

Alfred calls him for lunch sometime closer to evening than midday. Clark lets himself hope the concerned look on Alfred's face is because of the bus crash. Hope isn't the same as belief but he's glad Alfred doesn't make him talk about it.

 

Bruce comes home from the city looking every bit Bruce Wayne, playboy executive. He has the jacket of his three-piece suit slung over one shoulder and a smirk on his face that he only usually wears in public. 

Clark had heard him coming, listened to the sound of his heartbeat for the last ten miles of the drive out from Gotham. He'd climbed back into Bruce's bed, mind thrumming through things he might say when Bruce asked him what he wanted. So he's there, and he's waiting when Bruce arrives.

Clark is wearing track pants and an old worn t-shirt from a fundraising event where kids from his freshman high school class had washed cars to raise money for Gotham General. He'd put his glasses on without thinking about it, stared in the mirror for a while after wondering whether wearing them was just another fruitless attempt to seem human. He's never felt less human, or less able to pass for one, than he does now.

Bruce takes his time hanging his suit jacket in the closet and, when he looks at Clark, his expression shifts. “So,” he says, taking a step towards the bed, “did you decide what you want?”

He starts unfastening his cufflinks as he waits for Clark to respond, rolls up his sleeves, and Clark gets so caught up in watching that he forgets he's expected to say something.

“Clark?”

Clark swallows, “Can you just touch me? It would be enough, I think, and I don't want to hurt you.”

“You're not going to hurt me, Clark.” 

“I might. I could.” Clark says, but Bruce has turned his back. He sits down on the far side of the bed away from Clark, unties his shoes and takes them off. 

Clark watches his back, his shoulders, can't quite reconcile his mind to the fact that Bruce might take off the rest of his suit and let Clark look as long as he likes, let him touch. 

“You won't.” Bruce says, turning to him, “I trust you. I know you, Clark. You need to stop being afraid of this.”

He unfastens his collar pin without breaking eye contact and Clark knows Bruce can see he's already breathing a little faster than he should be. 

Bruce stands up, walks around to the other side of the bed where Clark is. Clark's sitting up in bed, under the sheets and Bruce rolls them down to the foot of the bed. “I'll start with what you asked for. But you have to tell me if you want something else, if I'm going too fast or you want me to stop, OK?”

“OK,” Clark says. Bruce hasn't even touched him yet and it's taking all the self control he's got not to start shaking. 

Clark watches Bruce's hands, tracks them on their downwards trajectory until they stop and Bruce lifts the hem of his t-shirt. Clark shifts forwards towards him, taking his weight off the back of the shirt, and Bruce slides his hands up under the front of it, his palms running up Clark's chest. Clark finds it hard to remember to breathe, to remember to raise his arms so Bruce can pull the shirt off over his head. 

Bruce runs his hands over Clark's shoulders then down his arms and Clark braces his arms palm first on the bed to remind himself not to reach out to touch Bruce in return. 

“That doesn't look comfortable,” Bruce says, fingers running over Clark's wrist, veins standing out from the pressure Clark's putting on them. He pauses for a minute and then counters Clark's silence with a smile. “If you're not ready to touch me yet, how about this.” Bruce takes off his tie and winds it around Clark's wrist, guides the other hand around to meet it behind Clark's back. 

The knot he makes is loose and the tie itself is an insubstantial strip of silk. 

“You know that won't stop me.”

“You can control yourself,” Bruce says. He's got a confident Bruce Wayne smirk on his face which is almost enough to make Clark call him a liar. “If you can't trust yourself, trust me. I won't let you hurt me. You don't need to be afraid of this. You do trust me, don't you, Clark?” 

“Yes,” Clark says, “I trust you.”

“Good.” Bruce says, “then lift your hips.”

Clark complies and Bruce's hands slide in under the waistband of his track pants, find the elastic of his underwear and pull that aside, too. 

“You have to tell me if you want me to slow down.” Bruce doesn't look up at Clark this time and Clark's almost relieved. He can see how Bruce's eyes linger over his cock, half-hard already, and that's almost too much for him. 

When Bruce is done sliding down his track pants and underwear, he takes his time standing over Clark, just looking at him. Clark is naked except for the tie binding his wrists and the glasses he doesn't know why he was wearing to begin with. He's also pretty sure he's trembling now.

“Please,” he says, when Bruce makes no move to touch him. He still doesn't understand why Bruce is willing to do this. Bruce had taken him in because he was afraid of what an alien being from another planet might be able to do but this isn't the same as testing out how fast Clark can travel or how far he can hear. This isn't necessary and the only way it saves lives is if it helps to stop Clark from falling apart. 

Bruce doesn't touch him right away. Instead he climbs up onto the bed and puts a leg on either side of Clark. He's still wearing his suit, less the jacket, cufflinks and tie. His top button is undone and Clark can see the way his adam's apple bobs as he swallows. 

When Bruce does touch him, he starts with one hand on Clark's thigh, the other on his side next to his stomach. The hand on Clark's thigh moves up slowly and, when they make eye contact, Clark closes his eyes for a second, trying to concentrate just on the feeling of Bruce's hand as a finally touches his cock. 

Bruce is still looking at Clark's face when he opens his eyes again, smiling as Clark breathes heavily, arches under Bruce's touch. 

Bruce starts slow, running his hand up and down Clark's cock, with a grip that's almost frustratingly loose; then swirling his thumb over the head. 

Clark gasps, hands clasping into fists behind his back; and Bruce picks up the rhythm, rubbing precome down the shaft, letting himself find a tighter grip and smiling as Clark bucks against the palm of his hand. 

Clark keeps closing his eyes, trying to focus on the feel of Bruce's hand on his dick. It's enough, he thinks, it's more than enough. Looking up at Bruce and seeing the concentration on his face, part serious and part amused intent. 

But then Bruce touches him in a way that makes him do more than gasp and Clark feels it all through his body, up his spine, and he pulls his hand free and grabs Bruce's wrist without thinking about it. 

Bruce's hand stills and Clark looks down at his hand clasping Bruce's wrist. “Fuck,” he says, forcing himself to loosen his grip, then letting go slowly and looking down at his open palm. Bruce's wrist has the white outline of a hand around it.

“It's fine,” Bruce says. His voice solemn, heavy with insistence. He holds out his hand and lays it on top of Clark's palm up, flexing his fingers as if that's proof. 

“It's not fine.” Clark says. He runs his other hand, still with the tie trailing loosely around it, through his hair nervously. “I could— It's not fine.” He's frowning, and he looks down to avoid Bruce's eye when he says “I think you should use the kryptonite.”

He watches, head still a little bowed, as Bruce's eyes track over to the lead box set carefully on the bedside table. He knows Bruce had noticed it when he walked in and merely chosen not to mention it but his face clouds over now, as though he's only just now considering what it means that Clark had put it there.

“No.” Bruce says. “I won't. We won't have to and,” he lifts Clark's chin in his hand, “Clark, I want you to enjoy this. This shouldn't just be a necessity, it's—”

Clark looks at Bruce, lets himself take one measured breath then moves to kiss him because Bruce's words sound like permission to do the one thing he'd thought might be crossing a line. 

Bruce freezes for a second, as though his automatic response would have been to recoil, but then he moves in, too, angling Clark's face with his hand. 

The first kiss is lingering, slow and almost chaste. Then Clark presses their lips together again, a little firmer, and they move together. Bruce, on his knees, has his body angled over Clark, moves his hand to the back of Clark's head. 

Clark starts to unbutton the vest of Bruce's suit, hands feeling unduly clumsy. 

Bruce presses Clark down into the pillows, starts running kisses down Clark's jaw, his neck. 

“I want you to enjoy this too, Bruce,” Clark bites his lip as Bruce's teeth graze his nipple. “I don't want to feel like this is just how you stop me from hurting someone, I—” 

Bruce looks up at him, eyes wide, and he finds Clark's hand and guides it to where his own dick is straining against the fabric of his suit pants. 

“Fuck,” Clark says, “Can I— I want to see it. Fuck.” 

Bruce smiles, doesn't say yes but keeps his hand over Clark's, brings it back up to his collar, guides Clark to start unbuttoning his shirt. He takes it slow, makes Clark take his time. Then brings both of Clark's hands up onto his shoulders under the shirt, having him push it back and off along with his vest. 

Bruce tosses both garments onto the floor, waits as Clark's hands linger over the muscles of his shoulders, lets his smirk be the thing that reminds Clark what he'd wanted to begin with.

“Can I?” Clark asks again, hands moving to undo Bruce's fly. 

“Yes,” Bruce says, letting out a breath as he adds: “anything.” 

Clark bites his lip again, “OK,” unhooks the fastening on Bruce's pants and slides down the zipper. His hand lingers over the front of Bruce's underwear, barely brushing the fabric. 

He looks up into Bruce's face, wide-eyed and unsure, and Bruce smiles at him. 

“Let me help you with that,” Bruce says, climbing off of Clark momentarily and stripping out of the rest of his clothes. There's a pause, almost a flourish when he stands there for a moment, watching Clark looking at him, taking him in, and then Bruce adds “Now we're even.” 

He gets back on top of Clark and tugs at the tie still looped over Clark's left arm, pulls it off and throws it aside. Then he puts a hand on the frame of Clark's glasses as if he were going to remove those too but stops short, moves in to kiss him instead.

Clark forgets himself for a while, kissing Bruce, hands gripping his shoulders, exploring down his back, until Bruce rocks their hips together and their cocks touch. Clark bucks up into him and then reaches his hand down between them to take Bruce's dick in his hand. Bruce arches into Clark's hand, bringing his own hand down to wrap around Clark's dick. 

They stay like that, each rocking their hips into the other's hand, until Bruce shifts so they're aligned. Bruce gently slips his own hand under Clark's, brushing over his own cock, shifts so their cocks are touching, each with a hand cupping the outside of the other's dick. Clark falls still for a moment, lets Bruce rub his dick up against him, finding a rhythm. 

“Fuck, it feels good,” Clark says, closes his eyes, lets himself relax into it. He didn't think he could relax until now, didn't think he could let himself enjoy the way his nerves are thrumming, the scent of sex and Bruce, the sound of Bruce's heartbeat just a touch faster than normal. 

Then Bruce says, “Tell me what you want, Clark.”

“You,” Clark says, voice unsteady now, “fuck, Bruce, I want you.” He wants to say all the things that he wants but they get caught up inside him somewhere somehow. He wants to say, _I want you to fuck me_ and _I want you to hold me down_ and _I want your hands all over me, your mouth, I want—_

“I won't fuck you tonight,” Bruce says, and he hasn't stopped moving, hasn't stopped pressing himself against Clark, “we should take things slow for that. You need to be relaxed and,”  
“I am relaxed,” Clark says, but his breath catches again as Bruce rocks the heads of their dicks together, “fuck.”

“You're doing well, Clark,” Bruce says, “really well. But I don't think you're ready for that yet.”

Bruce's thumb rubs over the head of Clark's dick again and Clark lets out a sound from the back of his throat that he doesn't think he's ever made before. 

“How about this,” Bruce says, and he shifts the angle of his body away from Clark so that Clark almost wants to tell him no, tell him not to stop, but Bruce closes his hand over Clark's dick again, twisting his wrist slowly enough that Clark stays feeling strung out and like Bruce's touch is only just enough. 

Bruce kisses his lips first, then down his jaw, his neck; tongue sliding over his nipple, his abs, stopping to look up at Clark as if to ask permission to go lower. 

“Yes,” Clark says, “fuck, yes, Bruce, please.” 

Bruce runs his tongue up the shaft before he takes Clark in, works his tongue slowly over the head and back down a way before he closes his mouth over Clark's dick. 

Clark closes a hand on Bruce's shoulder, draws in a sharp breath and tries not to move. 

Bruce teases at first, taking Clark halfway in, keeping an even pace, varying pressure and using his tongue to make Clark gasp, feeling him tense under him. 

Clark feels like every nerve in his body is under the sway of Bruce's mouth on his dick, like Bruce is taking him apart with every motion he makes, the wet heat of his mouth on Clark.

He grips Bruce's shoulder like it's his anchor on reality, the one thing keeping him from completely falling apart, but then Bruce takes him deeper, Clark's dick pressing down into his throat and Clark loses sight of everything, can't even get out the words to tell Bruce that he's going to come. 

Bruce pulls off after, grins at Clark, and before Clark has time to object, he gets off the bed and goes to shower. Clark lays there, reminding himself how to breathe. It feels unreal, like floating in a way which is far from flying, far from anything else he's experienced. 

He falls asleep and when he wakes up, he's lying under the sheets and Bruce is there next to him. 

“Go back to sleep,” Bruce says.

“Why?” Clark asks, not fully certain if sleep is what he's asking about.

“Gotham won't take care of itself,” Bruce says, sitting up and turning his back to Clark. “But you don't have to come with me.”

Clark looks up at him and even in the near-dark of the room, he can easily make out the mark on Bruce's shoulder, a hand-print sized bruise already forming.

“Fuck, Bruce, I think I—” he reaches up a hand to brush over it and Bruce flinches almost imperceptibly when he touches it.

“It's fine, Clark,” Bruce brings his own hand up over Clark's, holds it there a moment before he turns to face him. “We're testing your limits, remember? And it will get easier, like everything else.”

Clark just looks up at Bruce. He is a little awed by how he trusts Bruce with this, trusts him to tell the truth and make this work; and awed too by the trust Bruce placed in him, misplaced though it might have been given the deep bruise he's left as a reward for that trust.

Bruce leans down and presses his lips gently to Clark's forehead. Clark lets himself close his eyes again as Bruce turns away, marvels at how much easier it feels now just to breathe.


End file.
